Hillary Clinton Practices Pitch to Millennials

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to kick off a student conference of the Clinton Global Initiative University at Arizona State University, Friday, March 21, 2014, in Tempe, Ariz.

Associated Press

TEMPE, Ariz.– Young voters gave Hillary Clinton trouble in the 2008 presidential race and it’s not clear whether they’ll warm to her should she campaign for president again in 2016.

But Mrs. Clinton has ample opportunity to make inroads with teens and 20-somethings as she spends the rest of the year considering whether to run.

This weekend proved to be one such occasion.

Mrs. Clinton made several appearances before the 1,000 college students who turned out for “Clinton Global Initiative University,” a project of her family’s charitable foundation.

She took part in a panel with her husband and daughter Chelsea on Saturday night, fielding questions from students and late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel.

She also gave introductory remarks at a panel devoted to higher education, previewing what could be her message to young voters if she jumps in the race.

She laid out one of the main problems confronting young people – the grim job market.

“There are six million young people in this country between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither employed nor in school,” she said. “And even for a young person with a college degree it’s difficult to find a good job.”

She talked about the importance of finding work, tying it to her own biography. Mrs. Clinton mentioned she had learned things in every job she held, beginning with a part-time gig at a park in the Chicago suburbs when she was 13. The job posed a “logistical challenge” – how to find a way to haul board games and a volleyball to the park to keep the kids entertained, she said. With her father using the car to get to work and her bicycle insufficient for the task, she wound up pulling a wagon.

She said she “prayed nobody I knew would ever see me as I was going by their homes.”

Mrs. Clinton is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, but even some of her close advisers fret that she might have a tough time of it in the general election campaign.

She and the Republican nominee will battle for the youth vote — and some of her prospective opponents are at least 15 years younger.

In 2008, Barack Obama proved a magnet for young voters inspired by his insurgent campaign, as he defeated Mrs. Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

Mr. Obama won’t be on the ballot again, of course, but some other GOP candidates have piqued the interest of young voters.

But Mrs. Clinton has sources of support Mr. Paul and other Republicans can’t match. Many young women are excited by the prospect of her candidacy, hoping she’ll break the ultimate gender barrier.

In one panel, Vrinda Agarwal, a student at UC Berkeley, asked Mrs. Clinton about her political future and offered to be her campaign manager.

“Mrs. Clinton, if you don’t represent women in politics in America as future president, who will?” Ms. Agarwal asked.

If Mrs. Clinton runs, Chelsea Clinton could emerge as an important ambassador to the youth vote.

She spoke up for her mother at several points during the conference and volunteered a story about her mother from the 2000 Senate race in New York. At a Polish-American festival, a man approached Hillary Clinton and asked her to dance the polka.

Mrs. Clinton’s response?

“My daughter would love to.”

“Yep, that happened,” Chelsea Clinton said, as the students laughed.

Students were focused on Mrs. Clinton, of course. But they also took Chelsea Clinton’s measure.

Emily Potter, a 21-year-old sophomore at UC Santa Barbara who attended the conference, said that before coming to the event a friend of hers had mentioned that Mrs. Clinton, 66, might be too old to be president.

Ms. Potter said she doesn’t believe that’s the case– and she cited Chelsea as a reason why.

“Chelsea is a good example of how she’s connected to our generation,” Ms. Potter said. “[Hillary Clinton] is still in tune with her daughter and our generation and what we’re doing. So I really do feel they would represent us. They get that the millennial generation is committed to change and is very active.”

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Watch a video in which Hillary Clinton dodged a question about a potential presidential run:

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